2009/10 to 2017/18

Bristol City never reached the Premier League in the nine seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18, spending seven in the Championship and two lower down. Their best finish was 10th in the Championship, in 2009/10. They didn’t win a major trophy. Over those nine summers they paid £24.4m in transfer fees and took in £18.8m, a net spend of £5.6m.

Bristol City's decade had a dip in the middle. Tenth in the Championship in 2009/10, they slid to 15th and 20th before finishing bottom in 2012/13 with 41 points. Two seasons in League One followed, and they came back for 2015/16 to finish 18th, 17th and then a more comfortable 11th in 2017/18.

Their sharpest bit of business was Jonathan Kodjia: signed from Angers for around £2.1m in 2015 and sold to Aston Villa a year later for £11m. Famara Diédhiou also came from Angers, for £5.3m in 2017, the club's biggest outlay of the period.

With £900m on 115.football, Bristol City never need that trip to League One. The bigger prize is a first top-flight season since 1980. A club that found Kodjia on a budget ought to be dangerous with real money behind it.